DAREDEVIL #6 (1965)

So, in Tales of Suspense #51, Stan Lee introduced Marvel readers to The Scarecrow, a character who carried the same name as a Batman villain who has a chemical that makes people feel afraid, but Marvel’s Scarecrow couldn’t. He was just really limber. Now, we meet Mr. Fear, who has the same chemical as the Batman villain. We also get to see Ox and The Eel as part of Fear’s gang.

Part of what makes Marvel’s “street-level” books so much fun is how the underworld all starts to tie together. Although Spider-Man would carry a lot of the weight of this effort in the 1970s, it really starts here, in Daredevil, bringing together low-level lowlifes from Tales of Suspense and Amazing Spider-Man, and showing how it’s not just the big pieces of the Marvel Universe that tie together, it’s the littler threads. It makes the whole thing feel very organic.